rong, pure, who
is love, and who is a Father-mother-God, and is _our_ God.
"Thy _will_." God's will is His desires, His purposes, that which He
wishes to occur, and that to which He gives His strength that it may
occur. The earth is His creation. Men are His children. Judging from wise
loving parents among men He has given Himself to thinking and studying and
planning for all men, and every man, and for the earth. His plan is the
most wise, pure, loving plan that can be thought of, _and more._ It takes
in the whole sweep of our lives, and every detail of them. Nothing escapes
the love-vigilance of our God. What _can_ be so vigilant and keen as love?
Hate, the exact reverse, comes the nearest. It is ever the extremes that
meet. But hate cannot come up to love for keen watchfulness at every
turn. Health, strength, home, loved ones, friendships, money, guidance,
protecting care, the necessities, the extras that love ever thinks of,
service--all these are included in God's loving thought for us. That is
His will. It is modified by the degree of our consent, and further
modified by the circumstances of our lives. Life has become a badly
tangled skein of threads. God with infinite patience and skill is at work
untangling and bringing the best possible out of the tangle. What is
absolutely best is rarely relatively best. That which is best in itself is
usually not best under certain circumstances, with human lives in the
balance. God has fathomless skill, and measureless patience, and a love
utterly beyond both. He is ever working out the best thing possible under
every circumstance. He could oftentimes do more, and do it in much less
time if our human wills were more pliant to His. He can be trusted. And of
course _trust_ means _trust in the darkest dark_ where you cannot see. And
trust means trust. It does not mean test. Where you trust you do not test.
Where you test you do not trust. Making this our prayer means trusting
God. That is God, and that His will, and that the meaning of our offering
this prayer. "Thy will _be_." A man's will is the man in action, within
the limits of his power. God's will for man is Himself in action, within
the limits of our cooperation. _Be_ is a verb, an action-word, in the
passive voice. It takes some form of the verb to be to express the
passive voice of any action-word. It takes the intensest activity of will
to put this passive voice into human action. The greatest strength is
revealed in
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